Week 5: Final Walk and New Animation

 This week for Senior Portfolio was focused on touch-ups, polishing, and blocking for a new animation. With the feedback I received, I made changes to the paw movements within the graph editor. I flatten the curves after the paw makes contact with the floor, this was done with all four paws.

Another change I made was done using the 'breathe' controller under the rib cage. The change is very minor but I wanted to experiment with it in the walk cycle, I feel that it adds a bit of realism to the piece. 

I also made changes on the COG controller that added keys to the X translation so that there was more of a swing left and right. The purpose was to emphasize the change of weight between passing poses. In doing so, I think it also pointed out that the paws need more offsetting to avoid the left and right legs moving in sync. This will be fixed and adjusted before putting the second animation in spline.

Lastly, I was able to make keyframes that I felt satisfied with on the tail that moved with the body and a slight bounce that suited the walk cycle. I had also tried to add some keyframe on the eyes for a slight blink animation during the walk cycle. While experimenting with these controllers and saving, the controllers were deleted at some point and no longer accessible. Overall, some additional polishing is needed on the keys of the paws, specifically the back legs.

I started blocking out some poses on a separate scene that will include a sequence of 'dog training' tricks. This will include: an excited jump, a spin, shake, high-five, and bow. I want to also include a sit and down pose but the rig was posing some issue when blocking out these positions, I'll have to spend some time to figure out these poses with the rig limitations this week.